The UN Human Rights Coun­cil today passed a res­o­lu­tion to refer the Isa­ias regime to all organs of the UN includ­ing the Secu­rity Coun­cil for appro­pri­ate action fol­low­ing a damn­ing report, which estab­lished that crimes against human­ity are being per­pe­trated in deten­tion facil­i­ties, mil­i­tary facil­i­ties and other loca­tions inside Eritrea.

Opin­ions

The dictator-​led rul­ing party started a cadre school at the secluded Sawa National Mil­i­tary Train­ing Cen­ter with the hopes of find­ing a base for the pro­pa­ganda that it needed to ratio­nalise its tyranny after the end of the war with Ethiopia.

As Europe con­tin­ues to debate how to respond to the migrant cri­sis along the Mediter­ranean, there are repeated calls for the Euro­pean Union to attempt to address the “root causes” that lead tens of thou­sands of migrants to flee.

This is to reg­is­ter my deep­est regret at repeated state­ments you’ve made in sup­port of the Eritrean regime, the most bru­tal sys­tem of gov­ern­ment our peo­ple have had to endure for more than two decades.

Mr Pres­i­dent this is the crime that you have com­mit­ted against us, an entire gen­er­a­tion Eritre­ans who came of age dur­ing your tenure in power in Eritrea, we hold you per­son­ally respon­si­ble for the forced migra­tion we have been sub­jected to and for the death and destruction

Spe­cial Features

Zebib Efrem fled three years ago to Switzer­land to escape the dic­ta­tor Isa­ias Afew­erki regime. In Schmerikon, she’s adapt­ing to her new life where she’s train­ing as a spe­cial­ist in women’s health

On the 27th of June, 2014, the UN Human Rights Coun­cil resorted to the excep­tional mea­sure of estab­lish­ing a Com­mis­sion of Inquiry (COI) on Eritrea. But, what is the sig­nif­i­cance of COI and why is it wel­come news for Eritre­ans? First, a brief intro­duc­tion on the man­date and pro­ce­dures of the Human Rights Coun­cil follows.

Most of Eritrea’s cit­i­zens had no idea the regimes of nearby coun­tries were crum­bling — or that a ship full of their coun­try­men had gone under. That’s because Eritrea, a Pennsylvania-​size nation of 6 mil­lion, is the least con­nected coun­try on earth

These peo­ple who served Eritrea and the Eritrean peo­ple their whole life are never charged offi­cially with a crime, never tried before an inde­pen­dent court of law, they have never got the chance to admit to any accu­sa­tions or defend them­selves openly.

Thou­sands of peo­ple leave Eritrea every month, des­per­ate to escape that country’s oppres­sive regime. But brav­ing trigger-​happy bor­der guards is just the first hur­dle. Incred­i­bly vul­ner­a­ble, Eritrean refugees are prime tar­gets for traf­fick­ing and extor­tion rings, a lucra­tive side­line that helps fuel organ­ised crime and polit­i­cal insta­bil­ity as far away as Egypt’s Sinai Penin­sula. By SIMONALLI­SON for ISSTODAY.

Fithi Events

We’re happy to announce that Eritrean UK organ­i­sa­tions for jus­tice will be gath­er­ing their strengths this Sat­ur­day to dis­cuss the Com­mis­sion of Inquiry with Ms. Elsa Chyrum, Direc­tor of Human Rights Con­cern. We will dis­cuss on how to opti­mize the impact of this mea­sure in the UK and how to uti­lize our resources in order to effi­ciently expose all the human rights vio­la­tions per­pe­trated in Eritrea.

The very suc­cess­ful demo that started in Bologna against the pfdj 40th anniver­sary, which then con­tin­ued to Swe­den, another suc­cess­ful demo, is now our turn– Bay Area. pfdj are get­ting ready to have another fes­ti­val here

On the 21st of Sep­tem­ber 2014, it has been 13 years since Sey­oum Tse­haye, Dawit Isaak och 8 other jour­nal­ists were impris­oned in Eritrea. Mona Sahlin, Mar­tin Schib­bye and Dawit Isaaks daugh­ter Betle­hem Isaak are some of the speak­ers at the event. Join us on that day!